Of course, young social networkers at your house already know all about "weak ties" - they just call them something else: their social-network "friends." Some of them are friends in real life, some just friends of friends, kind of second-tier friends, or somebody they met at the last away game. It's just helpful to have a fellow adult explain what friends in social-network sites are like from a … [Read more...] about The ‘weak ties’ that bind
social networking
Top 10 ‘social media sites’
That's what TechCrunch wisely calls them, as it looks at the latest available comScore traffic figures (November) for "social networking sites." ComScore includes blog-hosting, media-sharing, and pre-social-Web community sites in that category, though, so "social media" works much better. Google's Blogger - which hosts blogs, of course - is No. 1 (with 222 million unique visitors in November, up … [Read more...] about Top 10 ‘social media sites’
Tech & the student athlete
In proportion to their notoriety, star athletes (and aspiring ones) run the risk of a different kind of celebrity on the social Web. Established student athletes have probably already learned this, hopefully not the hard way. "Post a photo of yourself on your own or someone else's Facebook page holding a beer at a party or engaging in some other objectionable behavior and you could find yourself a … [Read more...] about Tech & the student athlete
Europe on age verification, social networking
As the Internet Safety Technical Task Force wraps up its year of studying potential tech solutions for youth risk on the social Web, some perspective from across the Atlantic seems timely. The ISTTF's report, which we worked on together this week as Task Force members, goes to the 49 attorneys general who formed the ISTTF at the end of the year. The European Commission last summer held a public … [Read more...] about Europe on age verification, social networking
Social (networking) scene in Canada
Canadians have definitely taken to social networking. "Some 17 million have a Facebook profile, 4.5 million are on MySpace, 14.5 million visit YouTube every month, and 3.6 million upload photos to the sharing site Flickr.com," the Toronto Globe & Mail reports. It doesn't even mention home-grown Nexopia, based in Edmonton, with about 1.4 million users. The Globe & Mail article (and accompanying Q&A … [Read more...] about Social (networking) scene in Canada